I feel like you can't really talk about the devolution of higher education without talking about the devolution of primary education. Out of, what... I think the average undergraduate degree is 120 credits... mine ended up being like 140 credits due to several reasons which I'll explain in a footnote for those who care.* I worked hard for my education... but most of that hard work started my sophomore year and the real hard work didn't actually start until my third year (which I referred to jokingly as my jun-more year because it was a transition period between majors). The first year was introductory English composition that was required of all freshmen (which is weird because the school had a placement test for English - apparently you just wrote an essay and it didn't fucking matter, about which I can do nothing but add it to my list of Ways Academia Wasted My Time and Money) as well as remedial math that I didn't need and only eight credits per semester (roughly 60% of my courseload) of classes that I did need: general chemistry plus lab, and general biology plus lab. Even then, the chemistry and biology were largely revision from my sophomore and senior years of high school.

... I graduated with a 4.15 cumulative GPA - higher than 4.0 due to AP classes and such, and my SATs were in the same league. The only time I have ever scored less than 98th percentile on standardized tests was when I took my GRE two days after my husband had gotten discharged from the hospital for emergency surgery, and that time I only managed the pitiful score of 96th percentile. Not only have I had a quality education, by any academic standard of measure I have the numbers to show it. However, I spent my first two years in what amounted to a recap of high school and various remedial classes. Why? Because it's an increasing trend that college freshmen need to be brought up to the college level on things that used to be the fundamentals of high school. It's kind of ridiculous.

I can tell you that at least some of the blame rests with variation in high school education because I personally experienced that, too. I went to three different high schools, two of them private and one of them public. My GPA would not have meant jack shit (and would not have translated to high SAT scores) if the only high school I attended was the one I attended for my senior year. By the time I got there, I could correct my math instructor's work and I could speak better French than my French instructor. The English instructor was relatively intelligent but officially didn't give a shit, and the chemistry instructor was a brilliant man ... who was fired halfway through October because he was an atheist science instructor trying to teach chemistry at a provincial parochial school in conservative New Jersey. Essentially.

I'm not detailing all of this purely to bitch, but to illustrate that you can't really take higher education in a bubble, and you can't really talk about the devaluation of higher education without addressing the fact that primary education is at least partly to blame for that. And it feels a lot like students are getting the short end of the stick for the lack of value in education when it's pretty much the opposite of the students' fault. We can say that students should have curiosity and a drive to learn outside of the classroom but not everyone naturally has that and if it's not something that the people in your life valued enough to teach you to do it, you're kind of left with the shaft.

And while I know it wasn't directed personally or probably even particularly meant this way, Caela, I would appreciate it if you'd try not to dismiss all university degrees as experience in taking tests and doing nothing else. There are degrees in that, please don't get me wrong, but by the time I graduated with my B.S. I had over two years of experience in an actual, real, you know, could blow yourself up if you weren't careful laboratory. That's nothing compared to 20 years of experience, and I'm not arguing that, but I will point out that a good college will use both supervised academic settings and internships in the industry specifically to make sure that their graduates aren't going into the field "with NO experience doing it!", as you said. Thank you.

Regardless, if there's going to be a discussion of the overabundance of degrees alongside an underwhelming amount of education, it would probably also be wise to talk about, oh, stances on funding for primary education. Because that is also another divisive issue that tends to split right down party lines. Again.

* 1. I took summer courses throughout my undergraduate career. I took summer labs, I did research over the summer, and took the extra calculus that I needed in the summer in the hopes of graduating within a reasonable period of time. 2. I switched my major from biology to chemistry/biochemistry after three semesters, necessitating an extra semester or two of classes to fill in the gaps. 3. When I took my math placement test, I actually placed into calculus, but for some reason that I never discovered, my freshman advisor put me into essentially Math 101 - remedial math, of which there were three semesters, and only once I had taken three semesters of remedial math (that I didn't need) was I allowed into the calculus classes I should have been attending in the first place. 4. I took extra classes to fulfill requirements for my university's Commonwealth Scholar program, a designation that is only granted if you take extra coursework in science or humanities (in my case it was humanities since I was in a science major) plus graduated cum laude.

Conventional wisdom would be to say that increasing monetary investment in K-12 education would yield better educational outcomes. If this money is utilized effectively, I would whole-heatedly agree with this statement. However, after actually seeing how districts utilize their resources (going past the paper budgets), I fundamentally disagree. First and foremost, educational spending has dramatically increased from $25 billion (adjusted for inflation) in 1965 to $108 billion in 2002. In 1970, we spent $56,903 per student, and in 2010, we spent $164,426. One would realistically anticipate that student outcomes have also correspondingly increased over this time span - but take a look at what the data show below. In some cases, educational performance has actually decreased, even though expenditure has increased almost 200% per student. My belief is that funding is definitely needed for education, but something is fundamentally wrong at the educational level when increasing funding is decreasing student performance.

I'll give you a prime example of how money is wasted in K-12 education. The big trend right now is Educational Technology - and how helping kids becoming proficient with technology is critical in helping them develop the skills they need for the jobs of tomorrow. This is an extremely true statement. We need students who are proficient with computers - for example, knowing how to enter formulas and manipulate charts in Excel. However, many school districts instead choose to actively try and obtain iPads, SmartBoards, and ChromeBooks (I wish I was joking). These devices are not going to replace traditional computer programs in the near future, and in most cases, are novelty technologies that the students will anyway learn to use in their daily lives - living in a digital era. Many of these students have no clue how to graphically represent a set of data on a computer, but are virtuosos at playing "math games" on their iPads.

The problem with education in the United States at the K-12 level is something much, much more foundational than lack of funding. India and China are churning out scientists and engineers in staggering numbers, with educational funding at a fraction of what we spend here. Rather than throwing more money into a recipe that has shown itself to be inefficient, we need to identify where the waste is occurring, and utilize our immense funding more appropriately. The reality is that we do need more effective teachers - I wholeheartedly agree with that. I know many people who went to college for K-12 education who are currently unable to find jobs. This is not because there isn't enough education funding - it is because the existing funding is being utilized in ways that are not effective.

And while I know it wasn't directed personally or probably even particularly meant this way, Caela, I would appreciate it if you'd try not to dismiss all university degrees as experience in taking tests and doing nothing else. There are degrees in that, please don't get me wrong, but by the time I graduated with my B.S. I had over two years of experience in an actual, real, you know, could blow yourself up if you weren't careful laboratory. That's nothing compared to 20 years of experience, and I'm not arguing that, but I will point out that a good college will use both supervised academic settings and internships in the industry specifically to make sure that their graduates aren't going into the field "with NO experience doing it!", as you said. Thank you.

I'm sorry you took my comments to think I was dismissive of ALL degrees, I'm not in the least. There are plenty of them that have great value in and of themselves and come with added value in experience, networking, internships etc. for the field they are being taught in. I certainly don't want someone working in a lab, doing sensitive research who doesn't have the appropriate training and education in biology/chemistry/physics etc and the requisite training as well to ensure that they, and those they are working with come out of that lab safely each day as well. I wouldn't want someone standing up for me in court that hadn't been to law school, or giving me a medical opinion without being a Board Certified MD/DO.

What I am dismissive of, is the idea that we as a society seem to have come to that every job somehow requires some sort of 4 year degree...even it it's entirely irrelevant to the work being done, and that somehow a degree can/should be more valuable than actual RL experience. We also seem to put increasing amounts of pressure on young students that they have to go to college. That they are somehow worthless if they choose another path. We seem to have lost sight of the fact that not every student is cut out for University and that not ever job needs a degree to do it, or even to do it well.

And I'm not even going to get started on K-12 education...that's a whole rant in and of itself!

The next question is, why has the demand for higher education skyrocketed? In the past, if you wanted to attend college, you would go to a bank to obtain a student loan, since the student loan industry was privatized.

Since the student loan industry was privatized. You're very tellingly skipping a large step here: the difference between public and private student loans. Public loans are not yet a thing of the past, and private loans are not a default standard. That's deceptive, quite frankly.

And as is to be expected, private loans are a much more predatory beast than public loans, which are constructed to serve to public weal and to protect the borrower. So, the real question is: why would you oppose protecting the borrower? Again, these things are interconnected. If you want to prioritize private over public loans, what you really want to do -- or at the least what you are effectively doing -- is to prioritize the wealth of companies over the safety of the borrower. Why? Well...

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In other words, a student with a 2.1 GPA graduating high school, who clearly is very unlikely to do well in college, will be granted a federal student loan.

... you justify it by folding in an unrelated question. Universities set, and are qualified to set, their admission standards, not loan programs, private or public. Many up-and-coming colleges and universities are strapped for cash... because of systematic ideologically-motivated attempts to undermine public funding for universities. This has nothing to do with the virtues of private versus public loans.

Yes, your perspective on student loans is horribly weak. It betrays a prior agenda. [EDIT: Not that I think it's your prior agenda, mind. It's jut the prior agenda of those who crafted the "big government / small government" meme to scare you into searching for excuses, however thin and desperate, to find fault with any sort of public option on anything whatever. Which is precisely the reason that the "size of government" meme needs to die in a fire.] I do believe in finding common ground with moderate conservatives... but I don't believe in crediting just any conservative notion because it's portrayed as "moderate." There is still plenty of bullshit circulating. Too much of it. And too much dishonesty about what the real goals are.

As far as out-of-control credentialism goes... I'd agree with those who say it's a real problem. However, educational policy has to contend with the realities of the actual job market, not what we think the job market should be. Once over-credentialism has been solved, I'd say educational funding policy is free to adjust itself to those realities. In the meantime, it's not honest to say those realities do not exist.

One of the moms at my church, she has a son who is high school. He wants to graduate with the best diploma possible, so for that he needs to take Honors Algebra II. He attempted to sign up for it at the end of this year...only to be thwarted because of two other honors classes he was taking which were at the same time, because he was trying to take it as a sophomore and Alg II is considered a junior-level course at his school. So, he's been shopping around for college Algebra courses to see if they would cover the bill somehow. He went to six different schools, only two of them at the state level. Had the head of the math department call the math teacher at his HS to see if these college level courses covered as much as the high school's course.

Short answer: No.

Long answer: Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

Now, I'm going into education, so Mom came to ask me how this was possible. I told her that it was simple: colleges expect their students to have mastered certain basic things by the time that they get there, like Algebra. Plus, I added, math goes one of two ways in college. Either you're going into a technical discipline, like Engineering or Science (or even Mathematics), in which case you need highly advanced math - multivariate calculus with vectors and three-dimensional understanding and such things. Or you're going into a 'soft' discipline, where your knowledge of math can be limited to a couple of things that you might study in the span of a year. Business majors need to know accounting, and psychs need to know statistics. And some majors can get away with no math at all (like English), or they pitch a 'math for poets' program where students essentially get what they learned in high school again.

So, I said, it wasn't so surprising that college algebra doesn't cover as much, because either you're going beyond high school, or you're doing a program where math doesn't largely matter.

BUT, I told her, I had been reading a book recently about the American pre-collegiate education system (written when Clinton the Sir was in office), and it showed already that rising numbers of students that were going to college needed remedial courses in both English and Math, and that could only be because the American educational system was failing. So if Jr can go to college and not need to take English and Math for Idiots, then he's already ahead of the curve, I assured her.

One of the things I've always said since I graduated five years ago is that the American collegiate system is going to need to do in the next fifty years is come up with six new levels of degrees, because the minimum education needed to do anything in our society has been rising rapidly. I love using the examples of my parents and their parents and such things.

My grandparents (let's say Mom's side) came over to this country when they were kids. Went through Ellis Island and all that (they're from bonny old Scotland!). Grammar school and then high school, graduated at 18. Grandpa went out and got himself an apprenticeship and worked as an auto mechanic for the next 50 years of his life. Grandma was hired on as a secretary (and in THESE days, secretaries did shit!), and until she got married and started having kids, worked. By the time she quit, she was the personal secretary of one of the board members of her company.

In the above days, education past high school was if you wanted to do something like become a doctor, or a lawyer, or a teacher! (College professors count!) Something big.

Fast forward to my mom and dad's era. There were still plenty of jobs out there for people that didn't go past high school - college was strictly for those guys that wanted an extra edge to use in the employment field. Mom & Dad went to college, but they knew plenty of people who didn't that led financially stable and independent lives.

Jump forward again. This time it's me, my sister, and my brother. Everyone and their dog has a college degree, the only jobs left for those without are the checkout cashier at Target or flipping burgers at Wendy's. And there you have to compete with the high school kids. My siblings and I are all in postgrad education because we want to be ahead of everyone else.

This also ties in with the comments about Callie's work in the field and how everyone seems to need a degree these days. Because either academia will make new degrees...or they'll be forced to sit down and reevaluate everything, because this rise cannot continue. We can't have a nation flooded with PhDs because then it will make the PhD worthless.

Jumping trains again! Watch yourself!

This is mainly regarding Valthazar, talking about 'what is ailing the American educational system?' I mentioned that I had been reading a book written during the Clinton era recently. The book is: Dumbing Down Our Kids: Why American Children Feel Good About Themselves But Can't Read, Write, or Add by Charles Sykes. Even though it was written almost two decades ago, I do urge everyone to go to your library and find this book!

Sykes' hypothesis, Valz, is that self-esteem has largely replaced actual curricular standards in the American educational system - that it is more important to have a positive self-image than to actually be able to do anything. Things like mainstreaming for special education students and 'inclusionary tactics' compromise the integrity of the classroom and the ability of the teacher to actually teach.

Sykes also says that the problems the American educational system currently face are nothing new. Education works on a cycle, Sykes states. A lot of the things we see now are things that were tried in public schools in the 20s - they've got a nice, shiny new label, but they're the same. They failed then, they're failing now. We've got the winning gameplan...we're just not using it because of [insert phrase here].

Money isn't going to solve our problems. Education needs funding, yes, absolutely. But it also needs to stop following the Tao of Tall Poppies.

The one you are citing is a blatantly poor graph with two vertical axes - I fully agree with you. The concept I am conveying in my post is not one that is controversial, and widely accepted. Even the US Department of Education accepts that purely increasing funding has a poor track record of improving educational outcomes - as a justification for No Child Left Behind - which many educators, including myself, have serious problems with. (( Source ))

I will address private student loans, and why they have evolved to become predatory in another post when I am more alert!

Jump forward again. This time it's me, my sister, and my brother. Everyone and their dog has a college degree, the only jobs left for those without are the checkout cashier at Target or flipping burgers at Wendy's. And there you have to compete with the high school kids. My siblings and I are all in postgrad education because we want to be ahead of everyone else.

Yes, I snipped it. I'm sorry. Why? Because I do work at Target so this is the relevant bit for me.

I wasn't able to graduate college. Not because I didn't graduate high school with a 4.something due to my IB courses. But because I had to take those silly classes that were things I took in High School (calc 1 included in that btw and Bio 1 (the one for those meant to be scientist) I nearly slept through and still got an A without trying) and I got into some bad habits and, well, didn't want to accumulate more debt by switching to a field that is better suited for my learning style but has less money in it.

Like I said earlier, I work at Target. Have been there for 2 years now. Here's what you can do at Target if you show initiative.

- "Hello Pharmacist. I'm wondering if you could train me to work over here." "Sure, I'll give you some shifts when I have the hours." And you keep on the pharmacist. Tell them you're interested in being a Tech. You can get free Tech training and the test will be reimbursed if you pass.

- Keep an eye on the board for positions. Tell them you're interested in rising in the ranks. Actually do your job properly. Make sure you're noticed, which isn't hard if you talk to your managers. "Hey we have a team lead position." Great, keep going. Also inquire about them getting to sponsor you so you can become an ETL. Work your way up the ranks. It's hard but worth it financially.

I also, from looking around and talking to veterinarians, know that you can do similar things at Vet Clinics. It was already mentioned as something you can do to become a nurse. Veterinary Medicine was actually what I was attempting to get into, but well... Yeah. Things happen.

Now, I know there are certain aspects that are BS. Specifically working 20 years and being told you're inexperienced. And I'm sorry and that does need to change. But saying that all you can do with no degree is some lame minimum wage job is really not at all true. Networking sometimes works just as well, as does showing a lot of initiative. And persistence. It takes longer and I'm not saying it's right that it does take longer, but it really does help.

Yes, yes it is. There are numerous differently-tweaked versions of it with different preparation dates, but they contain the same data from the same sources misrepresented in the same manner. Take a look at the post date on the link there. Now notice that the Cato Institute page it links has dropped most of the second vertical axis and added the dashed line at the top and bottom that yours has, but is otherwise identical. And claims to have been prepared in September 2012. There's also this version from Feb 2011, which apparently didn't have an impressive enough funding curve (note that they dropped that source in later versions with a smoother funding curve). They're all the same guy trying to prove the same agenda, and repeatedly misrepresenting the data until he gets the story he wants to tell. Why exactly should we trust this source at all given clear misrepresentation and fudging of the data? (I'll also point out that the "total funding per student" figure comes from taking the funding of a graduating student for their final year, and multiplying it by 13. Because that number is going to be flat for over a decade as funding increases, and this is in no way going to massively overrepresent the actual cost, right?)

The one you are citing is a blatantly poor graph with two vertical axes - I fully agree with you. The concept I am conveying in my post is not one that is controversial, and widely accepted. Even the US Department of Education accepts that purely increasing funding has a poor track record of improving educational outcomes - as a justification for No Child Left Behind - which many educators, including myself, have serious problems with. (( Source ))

So that graph is bad because it has two vertical axes (this must be the only reason, as the same graph with the same data, but with the second vertical axis dropped, is fine), but this graph with two vertical axes is fine? How does that work?

As an aside: Yes, India and China are turning out massive numbers of people with science and engineering credentials. You will find that damn few of them are capable of actually being scientists or engineers, though - this is absolutely not a model to emulate in any way.

Whether or not you want to criticize the graph, my primary point was that throwing more money into education has not yielded justifiable returns in student performance, and in some cases, has declined. If you have statistics to show that simple education funding increases have yielded corresponding increases in student performance, feel free to contribute that to the discussion.

Whether you agree or disagree with India or China's educational model, we rely on their scientists and engineers since we are not graduating enough in certain sectors. They outscore us academically on a lower budget, meaning they are doing something right that we are not.

One thing that can't be helping the cost of education is the price of textbooks. It's so bad (How bad is it?) that my daughter's school does not have enough funding to give each child their own text book. That's right - night before the test, and none of the kids can take their books home for review. When I was a wee Oni, from first grade through the end of my junior year (I went into freshman college at that point), we all received a book at the beginning of the year and turned it in at the end.

Whether or not you want to criticize the graph, my primary point was that throwing more money into education has not yielded justifiable returns in student performance, and in some cases, has declined. If you have statistics to show that simple education funding increases have yielded corresponding increases in student performance, feel free to contribute that to the discussion.

Nice try, but no. That's not how it works. You made an assertion, it's your job to support it. Shifting the focus isn't going to change the fact that your source was crap.

Whether you agree or disagree with India or China's educational model, we rely on their scientists and engineers since we are not graduating enough in certain sectors. They outscore us academically on a lower budget, meaning they are doing something right that we are not.

Citation, please? Every source I've seen says that, on average, they're way below acceptable - or even useful - levels. If this is incorrect, I'd like to correct my understanding.

You know what I hate about textbooks? The State of Texas, which practically writes the books because they have a very large school system. I suppose if they didn't have to write books to that standard, there would be more competition.

(Frankly, there are a number of things about Texas that are... irksome... but there you are.)

One thing that can't be helping the cost of education is the price of textbooks. It's so bad (How bad is it?) that my daughter's school does not have enough funding to give each child their own text book. That's right - night before the test, and none of the kids can take their books home for review. When I was a wee Oni, from first grade through the end of my junior year (I went into freshman college at that point), we all received a book at the beginning of the year and turned it in at the end.

Speaking as a college student who regularly spent more on textbooks than a meal plan (until I stopping worrying and learned to love the piracy), I know the cold, awful truth of this. College books are even more of a scam because of how they rig it to keep you buying new books via non-refundable/one-use codes for 'online supplementary lessons' that, like, one teacher uses, but is still mandatory (and costs $50 more than the book without a code). They release a new $200 textbook that is the same one with different questions (I avoided buying an engineering textbook by downloading last year's edition...the only difference was that they altered the order in which the sample homework questions were given, and gave it a new cover image).

I'm not even talking college. I'm talking 6th grade. I remember the racket of trying to sell back college textbooks at the end of the term - it's the only reason I still have most of my non-math textbooks. (The math ones were kept for sentimental reasons. Stop looking at me like that.)

Why are they so expensive, anyway? o.o I remember when I needed a textbook for a course, we went to a shop that was dedicated to only textbooks, used and new, and was pretty much just a warehouse stacked to the roof with textbooks. They were overflowing with them, I got mine used, and STILL it cost me so much I had to pay my folks in installments.

Why are they so expensive, anyway? o.o I remember when I needed a textbook for a course, we went to a shop that was dedicated to only textbooks, used and new, and was pretty much just a warehouse stacked to the roof with textbooks. They were overflowing with them, I got mine used, and STILL it cost me so much I had to pay my folks in installments.

Because the publishers cook the costs since they know they have a captive audience.

The Koch Brothers, who are responsible for Koch Industries (go figure), have put out a commercial lately lambasting the minimum wage. Apparently, $34,000 annual salary is enough to put the average American family of four into "the 1%". Clearly, if you know anyone in that position, that is not so. How did they arrive at that? By taking into account the entire world. Normally, when one looks at a living wage for Americans, one looks at conditions in America. Where, you know, we live and work. Not Bangladesh, not the Sudan, not Chechnya.

But, ya know. When you have billions, I guess that excuses from reality.

The Koch Brothers are also behind the Tea Party Movement. If you through enough money, you can buy anything. Including the country you live in. Or at least try. Their first try, with the John Birch Society, sorta failed.

These guys, nevertheless, are are scary. And they believe in a theocracy, in dominionism. At least they say they do. It might just be a simple catch all for wanting to be all in charge, all the time.

I suppose then that the Tea Party and the John Birch movements, both of which espoused Christianity, come from another urge. Silly me, I tend to believe that people who bring up Christianity (however perverted) probably believe in that direction. I've yet to come across pagan political extremists.

I agree, though, that the Koch Bros. most likely worship Mammon. Or one of the other hell-born tied to gold. Not that I believe in hell, but so many do, they'd be bound to spawn some sort of creature by now. (A whole 'nother discussion, that.)